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Transit-oriented development, or TOD, could be the “poster child” for sustainable urban development. It concentrates land uses, including commercial and multi-family housing, near transit stations so as to reduce car dependency and increase ridership. The benefits are manifold; increased community health, positive economic impacts, less harm to the environment and potentially greater social equity.

But what about affordability? In exchange for all these benefits, do TOD residents spend more money on transportation?

A new NITC study compared TOD with transit-adjacent development, also known as TAD; another form of urban grown that is sometimes almost-affectionately referred to as TOD’s evil twin.

Researchers Brenda Scheer, Reid Ewing, Keunhyun Park and Shabnam Sifat Ara Khan of the University of Utah sought to answer three research questions. First of all, they wanted to establish clear criteria for how to tell TOD and TAD...

Carroll Visiting Professor Brian Ladd presents ìTransportation Planning and Automobile Dependence: Historical Reflectionsî on Wednesday, 4/29 at 2pm in Hendricks Hall at the University of Oregon. Sponsored by OTREC and UOís Department of Public Policy, Planning and Management, Laddís talk will ìtry to make sense of a century of transportation planning.î Ladd is an independent historian who received his Ph.D. from Yale University. He has taught history at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and is a research associate in the history department at the University of Albany, State University of New York. He is the author of Autophobia: Love and Hate in the Automotive Age and The Ghosts of Berlin: Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape, also published by the University of Chicago Press.